


Operation Ticonderoga

by soupsalad



Series: Gale [2]
Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Gen, i guess the story isnt really graphic but there is violence, so minor violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-27
Updated: 2017-06-27
Packaged: 2018-11-19 16:53:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11317653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soupsalad/pseuds/soupsalad
Summary: X9-27 remembers Z2-47s advice but does not take it when finishing his most recent mission. He pays the price for his shortcomings in the form of a few bullets to the chest.





	Operation Ticonderoga

**Author's Note:**

> i cant write summaries well but i do try please enjoy. also hey i finally made this connected to the fic that came before it, i have a few more things related to that first fic Gale, consider this a bad end of sorts for that series.

He did not want to be here. His clothes were dry now after having waited outside for his chance to enter and begin his job. The extermination of all railroad operatives within the building was easy. A lot of mission at this point seemed to blur together anyways. It was as thought the one before had never ended in the first place despite the two day respite. It was awful that he had to return to work just as it began to rain however.

  
Rain was not something he enjoyed at all. It had been that way for at least a month. When he felt the first few drops earlier that day he swore quietly to himself hoping it would end soon. Though his luck was never that good, when it rained it poured and when it poured he was stuck in the dreary weather.

  
Outside thunder rumbles and his expression sours.

  
_“No one is watching.”_

  
The words come to mind no matter how hard he tries to avoid them and it only serves to irritate him more. They were his own words once a long time ago on a day like this.

  
_“True.”_

  
And just as he had been expecting he was in his head again. He could not stop thinking of him now. He had no time to be thinking about such things, and yet here he was even at a time like this.

  
_“Don’t think too hard about what it is you’re doing right now,”_ He remembers him saying. It was unwise to muse to oneself during missions about something that had no relevance to the task at hand.

  
_“Talk to me when it’s over.”_ And under normal circumstances he would.

  
_“If you mull over it now you’ll only be hindering yourself and that’s not a very good idea.”_

He wanted to take the advice. It was one thing Z2 was very good at giving among other wonderful things.

  
“Hmm…” He sighs and looks around at the gen 2 units carrying out their duties. They pay him no mind just as he had expected. They were focused, unwavering in their fortitude, so very unlike him. They had no inner turmoil to wade through like he did. No anger to keep at bay.

  
No lovers to reminisce about.

  
The elevator bell rings and it starts him out of his thoughts, he was thankful for that. He steadies his gun and points at the elevator door. Whatever it was it would die. A railroad operative who had hidden? A scavenger? He could not bring himself to care, He lowers his weapon however when he hears the humming of a familiar voice.

  
The door opens and the first thing he notices are the hazy blue eyes of the future director. His face peeking out of the doorway.

  
“Hey!” He exclaims in his usual cheerful tone. There was a wide smile on his face as he stepped off the elevator, the gun of the long dead Kellogg in his gloved hand. If his opinion of the man before him was anything more that a nasty surface dwelling killer, he would have had quite a bit more respect for the future director for being able to do what he did to that man.

  
X9 looks away immediately. He was still wearing that uniform.

  
“Intruder identified,” He begins. This man was about the same size Z2 had been so it was no wonder the uniform ended up fitting him. His throat felt tight and there was nothing he could do but try to ignore it and keep talking. Getting emotional now was hardly appropriate.

  
“This is a restricted area, your arrival wasn’t in the mission briefing.” He spits in a failed attempt to remain calm. his words seeped out of his mouth like venom. If there was no one else in the world he could find to hate, he had this man at least.

  
The future director approached.

  
“This irregularity will be reported to Justin Ayo.” He finishes stepping back as the future director drew closer. He did not want to be touched as he had seen the man do to many others in greeting. Always a slap on the back and a shaken hand. He would rather not have to touch his gloves either.

  
“Ah, well I don’t think it’s that hard to tell who I am. I mean you haven’t shot me in the face so you must know!” It didn’t seem like a bad idea but he would have to refrain.

  
“I want to know why you’re here.” And as simple a request it was, something felt off. Was it not obvious? Was he just trying to start conversation or was there something more to it. Either way he wanted it to end quickly. The faster he answered the questions the faster he could get the man to leave and return to his business. His mourning.

  
“Intelligence indicated this is a railroad base. Perimeter breached and all hostiles eliminated. Currently maintaining surveillance.” He speaks quickly. Modulating his voice so that he did not repeat the mistake from before. Lashing out would not solve anything. If anything he could only imagine it would have the opposite effect.

  
“Ooooh.” The other responds and chuckles a bit. “Well uh, do you need any help? SRB sent me out here to do so but it seems like you got everything in control here.”

  
“Ah,” Is all x9 can muster in response at first. He remembered this man’s conversation with Ayo in the SRB. He had overheard it by accident and had spent every day afterwards wishing he had not.

 

_“The courser was hardly a challenge.”_

  
The words stuck with him, even when he wasn’t standing face to face with the monster who had said it. The rest of the conversation was no better. Thinking about it now, he was sure he was burning red with an internalized rage he couldn't have even begun to hold back had it been said directly to him.

  
_“I was expecting a lot more of a challenge, I ripped him to shreds! What with the way he was talked up, I'd been terrified! Finding out he was just some chickenshit with a bad haircut was a bit underwhelming.”_ He laughs.  
_“And he had a pretty nice uniform, it fit perfectly, It’s the one I’m wearing now. Got one good thing out of him I guess.”_

  
He had made Ayo uncomfortable. That had been clear as well. Ayo stood listening to him describe Z2's death in detail. Helping him collect data the director had called it, but oversharing he had heard Ayo call it later.

  
“Well, the elevator is disabled,” He says pointing to the stairs. His heart was beating, his skin burning as another round of thunder rumbles. He didn’t want to imagine it. Z2’s naked and mangled body still lying in the Greentech Genentics Building. His mind still decided for him however that this would be all he could imagine.  
“So, you’ll have to take the sta-“ He gasps, his words cut off by the sound of gunfire that he barely evaded, a scar across his cheek from the grazing he had earned. Red streams down his face.  
“What are you-“ He ducks behind a wall and more bullets fly by. This man was trying to kill him.

  
The gen 2’s in the room were quick to attack, all focused on the man’s destruction while he himself took a moment to think. This man was working for the someone. It could have been the railroad considering how recently he had destroyed this place but the brotherhood was not out of the question. It occurred to him quickly that this information didn't matter. He was being faced with the situation of taking out a traitor, one he would take great pleasure in destroying.

  
Why did he even buy the story about the SRB in the first place? They would not have sent him without good reason. They would have never done so with two coursers on the mission. He wonders what had happened to the second unit downstairs. Was he another story to overshare now too? It did not matter.

  
“You should hope that you kill me.” Are the first words that come to mind and then out of his mouth as nothing but a whisper drowned out by the gunfire of the units at his side.

  
He had told himself once, and only once that perhaps Z2 had died for a good cause. It was thanks to him that Father was reunited with his own parent. He had tried to imagine how happy the other unit would have been if he had known of the good he had done for the one who had given him life, the two of them really. It had been a little easier to live with when he thought of it that way. When he imagined the conversation he could have had with him about it he was not contented but comforted to some small degree.

  
_“You, it’s all because of you that father has been reunited with his family. I have never seen him so happy.”_ He could have said and Z2 would chuckle a bit, say he was simply following orders and that there was no reason to praise him. On the inside he would be brimming with pride however. He would smile and look down at his hands not sure what to do with them, try to tell him that he was being dramatic and that it was really not something he should be getting all the credit for. He would not let Z2 discredit himself so easily and fight back against his understandable but uncharacteristic modesty. They would be together, hand in hand celebrating the bright future of the institute in the new directors hands.

  
More bullets fly by and he rolls out of the way taking aim, his heart heavy and pistol aimed. Another flash of lightning followed by an exceptionally loud roll of thunder. With tears threatening to surface X9 pulls the trigger.

  
“You should hope you kill me!” He shouts and fires away.

“Because that’s the only way you’re leaving this place alive!” He could never have Z2 back, this much he knew. There were many things that could be cheated and reversed in this world but death was not one of them regardless of how much he wished it were true.

  
At the very least he wanted the uniform off of that traitorous monster. He wanted to kill him, preferably painfully, horribly enough for this man to feel the collective pain of everyone he had and was going to betray. Enough to avenge the fallen unit who would surely have been alive now if the soon to be director had only died in that dreadful vault he had come from. The one who was killed to find the son that this man was planning to betray in the end he was sure.  
“I’ll make you pay.” He could not scream, if he were to get passionate now he would lose focus, he would slip up and falter.

  
_“If you mull over it now you’ll only be hindering yourself and that’s not a very good idea.”_

  
Z2-47 had been exceptionally good at giving advice. Years older than him, he was a well trained and practiced unit. When he spoke of a method to use it was more times than not the best idea. X9 fires, his mind fogged with thoughts of the unit.

  
X9-27 had a talent as well, one that was not fitting for someone in his line of work. He had always been notoriously bad at taking advice and putting it to good use.  
He fights with his mind elsewhere, with anger clouding his vison until he was sure he was seeing red.

  
The uniform fit the soon to be director the same way it fit the unit it belonged to. Seeing it brought his mind to a body that lie naked and alone only a good ten minutes or so away. The tower where Z2 lie rotting alone for nothing was all he could think of.

  
The fight does not last long. In the end the courser finds himself lying quietly on the floor among the scattered and wrecked gen 2's his opponent had taken out with an ease he was sure he would brag to someone about later. X9 looks up at the ceiling, unmoving and listening helplessly to the traitor approach. His body was heavy, mouth wet with blood, limbs hanging from his torso, and his body full of bullet holes. He was a sight to overshare.

He looks over with blurred vision at the approaching uniform and tries not to mistake him for someone else. A someone who looked quite a bit like him from foot to knee, all he could see.

  
“Welp pal, it was you who told me not to lose hope, right?" He presses his foot to X9's cheek, a smile on his face. 

He presses harder.


End file.
